First Impressions at the Job

On the first day of my internship at Paradise Valley Hospital, I waited at the front entrance for my mentor. She caught me as she walked in through the sliding doors and insisted that I followed her. She walked a little fast, but I could keep up. As we walked to her office, we hear a voice say "Hey Sherilyn! You're just the person I was looking for. I have some paperwork for you." It was one of the engineers at the hospital. He followed us to Sherilyn's office. We dropped our bags then we looked at the paper work. They were papers that needed to be approved for the construction that was going to start in the Radiology department. We went down to Radiology and Sherilyn talked to to contractors to make sure that everything was going to be done right so that patients don't get sick due to contruction. Later she explained to me that her job is to prevent Hospital Acquired Infections (HAI).

In my internship, I will have to go to every department in the hospital. We go and check on the patients that are infected and document the new ones. She also checks in with the clinical staff to make sure that everything that can be done is being done to prevent HAIs.

I noticed that everybody in the hospital knows who Sherilyn is. As she walks through the hospital to check on the departments, she notices the people who are no following the proper precautions and she would correct them on it. She is always aware of what everybody is and isn't doing to prevent HAIs.

Everybody in the Infection Control office is really nice. Sherilyn is very knowledgable on her subject and is more than willing to share this valuable knowledge. She has a the personality where everyone wants to talk to her. She's always really bright. In the same office is Susan and Jose. they are both really nice, but I haven't had too much time to work with them. Today I talked to Susan for a little bit about colleges and stuff like that. Also I've been introduced to many other people in the hospital and have talked with a few of them.

I can't wait for the internship to progress so that I have more knowlegde and I can do more tasks. The first couple of day were mostly shodowing my mentor so that I can be better aquainted with the hospital and her job. Right now I'm not not really nervous about anything because I am very comfortable in this workplace.